A Long Shot, A Sure Miss, by Larissa Shulman

July 16, 2014
2 Comments

Football
is a kind of contemporary nationalism, a symbol of a nation’s cultural and
spiritual health. For the devout, those for whom football matters most, a match
can produce a catharsis so profound and moving as to shake an individual to his
core. It can also break a nation’s heart, as we recently saw during Brazil’s shattering
home-defeat against Germany. This is all to say that football is much
more than just football (except, that is, for soccer-playing Americans.)

That
is why Qatar’s bid to host the FIFA 2022 World Cup is loaded with a
significance that is greater than the rights to host the world’s most watched
game. Qatar’s winning bid means that it will be the first Middle Eastern
country to host the World Cup. While this comes as a boon for the Arab world,
it is accompanied by a host of problems, some of which are unique to Qatar and
the Qatari bid, and others which are endemic to the Cup itself.

Lacking
a vibrant football culture, Qatar seemed an unlikely choice to host the Cup
from the outset. The Arab World,
moreover, is far from being the global heart of the game. This is not to
diminish the importance of how the Arab World connects to its football teams.
It is only to say that FIFA fans and players alike might be more at home in a
locale that is more accustomed to, and invested in, football culture.

Taken
together or separately, the issues Qatar and FIFA face by maintaining the 2022
bid are severe, and this post does not lay out the comprehensive gamut of
them. Even if Qatar and FIFA withstand
the investigation, and Qatar keeps the bid, the fervor, pride, and spirit surrounding
the Qatari bid choice feel snuffed out.

Should
the bid be determined null, and it seems that this will be the case, the Arab
World will be deprived a cultural milestone. Following this, a
breeding ground of contention and rage will be left wide open. With an
increasingly isolated, messy Arab World, whose borders are currently in the
process of being redrawn, it is a step in the wrong direction to take a point
of pride and make it a point of contention. By doing this, FIFA risks representing
further alienation of the Arab World from the West.

Of course, this
alienation is the clear lesser of the two evils. Yet, it is impossible to ignore, especially
with a century already marred by contentious and bloody Middle Eastern
relations with the West. Though far from the wars of the Levant, the Qatari bid
was a dangerous gamble and will now be an ugly mess to clean up. The lesson learned is not a new one. It is
one that tells us that our Western imports, the things we consider “global”, cannot
be transposed onto the Middle East with an alacrity we take for granted.

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